Processing of cognates in Croatian as L1 and German as L2

Cognates are defined as words similar in form and meaning across two languages. Similarity in form may range from full orthographic overlap, as in English film – German Film, to partial overlap, as in English chapel – German Kapelle. Some pairs of cognate words developed historically from a common ancestor word, whereas others emerge when languages come into contact and loan each other words. Language users are typically unaware of such diachronic pressures. When acquiring a second language (L2) they can only perceive shared elements between L1 and L2. Cognates help explain the nature of lexical processing and the manner in which elements from the two languages interact. Different measures have been used to explore cognate processing and representation, including ERP (Midgley et al., 2011; Peeters et al., 2013; Strijkers et al., 2009), latencies in single word (Dijkstra et al., 2010; Lemhöfer and Dijkstra, 2004), and primed lexical decision (De Groot and Nas, 1991), eyemovements (Mulder et al., 2011; Rosselli et al., 2012), and scores on standardized tests (Kelley and Kohnert, 2012; Pérez et al., 2010). Taken together, empirical findings support the claim that cognates are processed differently from noncognate words. Despite the fact that the aforementioned experimental measures and techniques diverge, the conclusion is similar both in language production and in language comprehension (Dijkstra et al., 2010, for an overview). Nevertheless, results do differ with respect to a range of details, including the direction as well as the magnitude of the cognate effect. Specifically, most studies find facilitation in the processing of cognates in L2 (Dijkstra et al., 1999; Lemhöfer and Dijkstra, 2004; Van Hell and De Groot, 2008), but results are less clear when it comes to the effect of cognates in L1. For example, Van Hell and Dijkstra (2002) and Duyck (2005) reported cognates facilitation in the dominant language, while Kroll et al. (2002) reported small cognate inhibition in an L1 naming task, and Caramazza and Brones (1979) failed to find such an effect at all. In the present study we sought to examine the influence of cognates on lexical processing in a visual lexical decision task, using L1/L2 language pairs that belong to different subgroups of IndoEuropean languages: Slavic L1 and Germanic L2. The aim was to carefully replicate recent findings from a study by Radanović, Feldman, and Milin (2014). Crucially, their study showed quite a complex pattern of effects that included a threeway interaction of language (Serbian L1 vs. English L2) by cognate status (cognate vs. noncognate) by word frequency (as a numerical predictor – covariate). Cognates were processed faster than noncognates in L2, but, surprisingly, significantly slower than noncognates in L1. Furthermore, the size of the effect was greater when word frequency was low. Because this pattern of effects differs from what is typically reported in the literature, we designed a replication of the Radanović et al. study and followed their method and design, this time using another contrasting pair of languages: Croatian (L1) and German (L2).